In Charley Rosen’s latest ESPN piece in a series about the Knicks‘ 2014/15 season, team president Phil Jackson spoke candidly about the team’s problems early in the year, and said J.R. Smith had been showing poor behavior before the trade that sent the guard to the Cavs. Jackson also said that Smith was expected to shoulder a lot of the scoring load and had not been doing his job. Jackson did not add any specifics about what Smith, who is still an unrestricted free agent, was — or was not — doing. One league agent told ESPNNewYork.com’s Ian Begley that Jackson’s revealing of player transgressions was a “classless move” (Twitter link).

“J.R. had been exhibiting some delinquent behavior and had gotten into the habit of coming late to team meetings, or missing them altogether,” Jackson told Rosen. “Also, [Iman Shumpert] and [Tim HardawayJr.] were regressing, so I decided to meet with them separately and try to find out what, if anything, was bothering them.”

Here’s more from the Atlantic Division:

The Nets have promoted Steve Jones, the team’s manager of video operations, to assistant coach for player development, the team announced. He replaces John Welch, as Mike Mazzeo of ESPNNewYork.com points out (Twitter link). Welch left for an assistant coaching job with the Kings.

2 thoughts on “Atlantic Notes: Knicks, Nets, Sixers”

Yet another classless statement from Phil, in my opinion. He traded JR b/c he was terrible for them, and they got someone to take his contract if he was paired with Shumpert. The issue was the team he traded them to was able to put those guys in better roles that suited them, and that JR Smith money looked good all of the sudden…now he is tryi b to make excuses for giving away those guys for nothing.